5/30/14

It is our regular Monday night and class hello to you all. I have a guest
today she told me she was coming and it is very interesting because this
particular guest indicated that she had a dream last night. She was dreaming that
she was trying to save these four white and grey Koi fish so she was trying to put
two of them in her purse to take them back into the water because she thinks
that they were in danger. So she asked me what the dream was about. You know, I
of course would put a Buddhist spin on it but I believe that it is part of her
practice and the manifestation that she’s becoming a more serious practitioner.

When we make bows and we begin to practice, we start generating wisdom
and that wisdom starts generating compassion. So the fish in this particular
situation can be very auspicious in terms of being a very gigantic fish that represents
sentient beings as a whole, and carrying our vow to deliver sentient beings. So
it's her introduction to Mahayana, the supreme vehicle of delivering sentient
beings rather than just simply practicing for oneself; so this is something
very beneficial to her. I bring that up simply because I think it is something very
important for us to kind of see these signs along the way and understand that
it can come in any kind of form, not necessarily in a dream but in our daily
life in what we do and how we help people or how we don't help people.

We are going to return to the Hua
Tou and this idea of Huatou meditation from the Chan School. This
particular method was really advocated by a
Chan Master by the name of Ta-hui. I am sure his name is not spelled that way
but that’s the way they write it for pronunciation. He was around the 11th
century. I've mentioned the first time we talked about the Watteau, it kind of sprung
forth from the Pureland practice in some ways by the constant recitation of the
Amitabha Buddha's name, to the point where all of a sudden we got to where
someone would ask “who is reciting his name?” Because of the perfection of the
practice, one's wisdom brings forth these kinds of questions, and then as one
works on these questions sincerely, one can get some form of a resolution to
the question, but not in the way that we think in terms of somebody giving the
answer [let's say to the final question on Jeopardy.]

It doesn't come that way. It comes in a very unusual way sometimes but
we should not be seeking the end. That really messes everything up and many,
many people when they use the Huatou, they begin to try to mimic what other people’s
experiences are. I mentioned a couple of times before that once Master
Sheng-yen asked his Dharma heirs to write an article to be included in the book
as to what their experiences were. And I just simply use the time to speak
about the Dharma. So there was a big thing about saying “you didn't talk about
your experiences.”

So finally I had an opportunity to speak to him directly about that and
he asked me why I didn't say anything. I said, “I did! I talked about the
practice. That's what is beneficial; to talk about anything else about my
experiences might cause people to try to mimic the end-result, and that they might
immediately try to jump to that, to make it seem like they’ve got it when they
really didn't.” We should never think that way nor do I have that mindset that
I got it. It doesn't work that way; it actually works kind of the reverse way where
if one has a realization, one will say “look into the practice even deeper and
deeper” and looking more sincere with what they're doing and develop more of a
Mahayana viewpoint of helping others. That was what was reflected in that article
and that's all that needs to be said.

There's things sometimes where I may talk about some little small
realization that one gets with a method but we don't search for that. We don't
try to copy somebody because it's a really bad idea; because you can really
convince yourself that you’ve looked into the eye of God, or you know touch
something, or saw the Buddha or whatever. That can hold back your practice and
also can make you become very, very arrogant and dismissive of other people. This
is bad because somebody who has a little experience, they think this is
something great just simply because they had that experience. It shouldn’t look
that way at people. We should represent practitioners. So as I'm here before
you, I am a practitioner; maybe a little further down the line in terms of being
a practitioner but what realizations get you is to practice more. The
difference is that you have this realized faith that comes with an experience
of something that helps you push further.

When we practice a Huatou, we nevertheless have to base it on our
understanding of Buddhadharma or our understanding of what mind is. If we just
simply say “I want to answer this question with nothing else to guide,” it's
possible that one can gain entry in this way. We may have quite a bit of
backsliding because of the fact that we have not been able to get to a point
where we have a true understanding of what the practice is. When we have that
lack of understanding, what happens is that we are unable to penetrate because we’re
not prepared for the obstructions that come up in the mind. When those obstructions
come up in the mind, right away they become a big obstruction, and then all of
a sudden one can become very dismissive of the entire effort that one makes in
terms of the Huatou or anything in terms of the Buddhist practice and we just
can’t move forward. We get stuck on the
rising thoughts that keep coming up and then we develop the wrong kind of doubt
in the practice.

There's probably two major ways that we develop the wrong kind of doubt.
One of them is the lack of understanding of the Buddhadharma – that we don't
see things in the correct way. We lack sufficient wisdom to hear that. So
someone can be talking about the Buddhadharma and if we lack that kind of a root
or we lack the persistence, or the interest in it, we might as well, or I might
as well be speaking gibberish; it doesn’t make a difference. But when we open our
heart to listen to it, then we have a root to the Dharma and that gives us a good
practice.

The other is environmental obstruction or the wrong kind of doubt that comes
from two viewpoints. One of them is just things coming up in the mind as we
begin to practice, and the other more insidious one which permeates the
environment is occurrences in our lives; things that affect us. So the Buddhadharma
should never be seen as some kind of a panacea to all ailments that will appear
in this world. They’re a panacea in the sense that one can overcome these
obstructions, but it doesn't mean that by practicing you all get a safe pass. You're
still in the Monopoly game and there's still the going to jail cards that
pop-up and whatever [not that I’m thinking one of you have gone to jail], but
you know you're in the game and you still have to pay rent and still have to
pay charges and whatever it is.

All these things come up in the world but we should not measure the
progress of our practice with the situations that come up in our life because we
will lose every single time. It is a time when we actually have to go deeper
into the practice to try to have the faith that there's something there that will help you overcome the adversities
that are there. Now when I say “overcome,” I'm not saying that you will win the
lotto to help your money problems and your money problems will disappear. It's
just that you are going to be able to handle
them. You are going to be able to handle whatever gets thrown at you. It is not
very easy because sometimes, you get shovelfuls - one right after another,
after another; and that can affect you.

But if you practice in the right way, then when you sit to meditate your
meditation will be fine. In your daily life, your daily life will be fine,
whatever problems that we have. How many of you people here have a problem
right now in their life, raise your hands? Everybody; everybody has a problem.
And if I say, “How many have two problems,” I’ll probably have the same amount
of people raising their hands so we always have this. We understand that this
is our practice; that we want to help other people try to deal with their
problems. And it gets to be difficult when we lose our faith and we lose our
determination in terms of the practice and we create a doubt that this is any
good.

I knew one lady that was a Buddhist and she turned to be Christian
because the Christians were offering her a better package of offerings [not
money but food things] at that time, and so she went with them. It’s very
strange in terms of when we look at things in this way rather than taking a
look at and accepting responsibility for what happens to us [with the
understanding] that there are karmic forces at work. Not necessarily a single
karmic force and if you think it’s a single karmic force, it doesn't work that
way. There are contributing and associating karmic forces that are associated
with anything of any kinds of conditions that appear in this world.

What does that have to do with meditation of the Huatou? In the meditation
of the Huatou, one, we needed a great faith; a very strong faith that this
method will help us. It is not very easy because if let's say somebody asked
you, “What is your Huatou? What do you practice?” And you say, “I'm just asking
‘what is emptiness’ or worse yet, ‘who is dragging this corpse around?’” They'll
think that you’re on some kind of a zombie quest or something. You have to have
faith that there is a reason why this is working, why it was brought up.

This kind of a method was brought up in a way in which they enable
people that have the right attitude
towards it to reach a realization. There's a couple of different ways that one
can get through: through the practice, or through the principle. To me I spouse
the combination of the two. The principle says that right now, this very mind that
you're using is the Buddha-mind. But me saying that to you does not enlighten
you. But in the current practice of the Huatou, then we look directly into mind.
And the mind at some point will cease having a consciousness arising that's ego-generated.
When that happens the mind will reveal itself and all of a sudden, it's like
you thought a coconut was is hard-skin thing that has all these fibers and lo
and behold it’s this sweet, delicious white fruit inside and the delicious
nectar. But it was because the way you were looking at it was wrong.

When we have the right principle - the Right View of how to work it, that helps us; it sets our compass. It
keeps us clear in terms of what we're doing and it gives us a heads-up about
what is not the practice, what we should not be looking for in the practice or
in the method, so that Right View is
there. So we have faith in it, we have faith in the teacher, in the writings,
and faith in ourselves that we can do that. This is very, very important
because you may throw out the teacher, you may throw out the writings, but it’s
much more likely that you are going to throw out your own faith. If you don’t
throw out your faith then this will work. And when you see it work in the
proper way, it will work; but you have to have the faith that's there. You have
to have that faith that this method will bring about this condition; that “I
can do it!”

The Huatou is a really interesting one because it is in some ways, a
very slippery slope to get going on. It is difficult for us to fathom what it
is because it doesn’t start off very easy. We start doing the repetitions and
as evidenced by a lot of e-mails I’ve gotten from you, there are questions that
arise as to how we use it. And that's good; that means that you’re applying the
method and you’re working it. Master Sheng-yen likened the Huatou to somebody
who is chewing on a stalk of sugarcane. I don’t know, how many of you have had
experience on chewing a sugar cane? Almost all of you but anyway, when you are chewing
sugar cane, it's really rough and fibrous on the outside. But little by little
you start getting to the sweet part inside.

And the Huatou is just like this. The Huatou in the beginning, it's hard
to fathom; you’re measuring; “Am I getting anything out of this? I'm just doing
a recitation of this question, am I really getting anything out of this?” You
just have to keep doing it and doing it and then eventually, it becomes like a second-nature
to you that it comes up. But in the beginning, you have to put the effort into
it, which is the next vital aspect of the practice that we need to have, which
is determination. We have to have
this determination. In the 37 Aides to Enlightenment, this is called Virya. We talked about this before; this
idea of being “viryal,” very energetic about the practice to just keep at it
and keep at it.

This determination is a very interesting one in terms of how it comes up
in the Huatou because the determination can be called an angry determination. It's
not angry in this sense that one is emotionally angry or allowing passion to
arise. If one gets too angry in this way, that will affect your will a lot. But
there is a point right before you get to that where you want to begin to answer
this question. It bugs you; it really bugs you.

Have you ever worked on a puzzle and then throw it down going, “Ah, I’m
not going to do it!” and then pick it up again? You pick it up and you want to try
figuring it out. You may throw it down but you pick it up again. It’s because you're
determined to try to figure that puzzle out. Now a lot of us after the first
time you pick up and throw it down, you never pick up again. It is because you
don't have any determination; you don't have any faith in yourself that you can
solve the problem; “boom! It all collapses; it's of no use to you.

This is not the attitude one takes when one is using the Huatou. We have
the faith that we can do it and we have this determination; “I want to do this!
If there's anything in my life that I need to do, I have to resolve this Huatou!”
You have to have this kind of approach. If you don't have this approach, then
it will not generate the necessary energy to keep it going. But when you have
the faith “this will work,” and one as one master said, I believe it is Hanshan,
“if I am wrong about this, may I go to Avici
hell [which is the lowest hell], and may they cut my tongue out on a daily
basis.”

He was so sure about this and he's telling you that he believes in all these
and he believes in this hell and he is making this oath to you. That is serious;
it's not some fakey oath that we do, like you know Scout’s promise. I am not
demeaning them; I'm just saying that we use that vernacular of Scout’s promise
like a joke; no, it’s not like that. You have to make that determination and
the promise that you're going to do this and you're going to finish it. That
type of a determination with the faith produces the counter to the doubt we’re
talking about, which is the great doubt.

The great doubt comes from two different parts. One of them is very
important, which is the Right View. We
talked about the right view and we talked about mind. We talked about you
investigating Chan, investigating mind, looking into mind and yet have not experienced
it. When you have an experience of mind, it's very strong and it will lead you
to more doubt about the ego-related existence that we have thrusted upon this body.
And when you have this great doubt, it drives the method of the Huatou. You
have this determination; “I want to know this and I know there’s something
here. Gilbert talks about it all the time; the books say this; I don’t really
understand this but I want to know!” You want to know very emphatically so you
keep asking the question because you want to know, “What is wu? What is wu? What
is wu? What is wu?” You're not sitting there like some kind of a loaf; “what is
wu… what is wu… what is wu…” in a very passive way. You are bringing up that question;
you want to know it! You wanted it and that question generates more
determination.

In some respects, the use of frustration is good; that you can be
frustrated with it; that it is not coming up; if that frustration drives you to
ask the question. If the frustration is one where you fail and you lack faith,
and you lack determination, then it won't work. But if that frustration is “I want
to know! I really want to know! I want to know!” and if somebody came up to them
and said “it's time to eat,” it’s not even in the equation.

I was at a retreat once and “I want to know, I want to know!” and I was sitting
there and I had very little food on my plate and Master Sheng-yen said, “Gilbert,
if you're not hungry don’t eat.” I was like, “Huh?” Because the only thing I
was hungry for in that moment was to resolve the Huatou. I really want to
resolve it. Whatever I did in this determination that comes from it, it is
generated by the faith, and your determination, and the right view. When all
those things are present, then the Huatou will be driven. If you do not have
those, then the Huatou is not for you. You can try Silent Illumination, also
called silent movie watching because you’ll mess that one up too, but you have
an easier chance of staying calm.

But using the Huatou is very interesting because if you do it in the
right way, what happens is the mind becomes very quiet. Even if you have not
resolved it, it becomes quiet because when you're asking the question no other
thoughts are arising. No thoughts are arising so the mind takes a rest from the
ego. The ego is what generates all these thoughts and sometimes you’ll say,
“I’m so tired of thinking!” None of you ever have that problem, right? “I’m so tired
of thinking; I’m thinking all the time about this and thinking about that” and
you can’t deal with the things anymore. It is because it takes a tremendous
amount of brain power to think and you're using a lot of energy to think.

But when you're with the Huatou, you're just giving it all to the Huatou.
It’s kind of like a self-cleaning oven; it just starts picking apart all that
crud. [Now I know some of you are looking at your oven at this moment going, “How's
my oven look today?”] But you shouldn’t be thinking about the oven in your home;
you should be thinking about the oven in your head instead; start cleaning
there. It will work in this way so these are the things in terms of the Huatou
that's very, very important in terms of how we work it.

Initially the Huatou, we recite it; “What is wu? What is wu? What is wu?
What is wu? What is wu?” and we keep coming back to this determination. You
want to resolve the question. Remember, the emphasis is “before the word” and as you recite it, you’re asking the question.
It's not just simply that you're just saying “what is wu?” You're asking the
question; you are demanding an answer. Now in the beginning, there's not much
demanding. You’re just simply kind of connecting the “what is wus” together. So
in the beginning, it it's like, “What is wu? What is wu? What is wu? What is
wu?” with not too much energy. But later on, you start developing the more
emphatic like “WHAT IS WU!!! WHAT IS WU!!! WHAT IS WU!!! And you’re demanding.
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As you’re doing that, it's as if you're blowing up a balloon but not
just like a balloon. You could say like a beach ball; have you ever seen people
that blow up the beach ball, these super strong people or they blow up the hot
water bottle? They’re blowing up the hot water bottle and blowing it and
blowing it. I’ve even seen the Christians do that as an evidence of faith, that
they can blow the water bottle.

But in any in any case, the Huatou is that way. It creates a pressure
but you’ve got to feed it in the beginning. Later on, it would just keep
bringing you back to that question, but it keeps getting bigger and bigger and
bigger and bigger, and there is a pressure to it. Now as we’re talking about this,
we’re talking about hard Huatou that one is using in a retreat, where you start
really saying that you're going to do it.

I remember going into a retreat thinking this is equivalent to climbing
Mount Everest. I have everything prepared; I'm ready to go, you know; I got all
my ropes; I got all my things that I need to climb; I’m ready to go. When the retreat
starts or before the retreat starts, you're on your method, and you make a push;
and you push, and you push, and you push. It takes that much to do it to try
using a hard Huatou to gain entry. You need every single minute of that time in
a retreat to do that - to essentially work that Huatou in a hard way, and
develop this great doubt, which is like you’re blowing up and blowing up the
balloon until you become inside the balloon, and then you become the balloon. This
is the effort one takes when using a hard Huatou.

Using the soft Huatou, we can use it on a daily basis and helps us and
just keeps us like on an even keel so that when we have an opportunity to use a
hard Huatou. We know, we've got it all set up, everything is already to go, “boom!”
We can use it and make an effort to it. Even if one uses a hard Huatou in their
daily sitting, it's still good because the benefit of it is that you will quiet
the mind. So you're still getting a benefit even though maybe you might not get
the realization that you are looking for. The Huatou is simply designed to
bring about a realization. That's what it's there for. Ta-hui understood the
necessity that some people require this kind of penetration into the Dharma [through
this realization] and then begin their studies.

Others study and study, and enter through that way. The danger of going
simply by principle is one can become an intellectual. Not that that’s bad but
they’re not using the sincerity of the practice to look and investigate mind.
They are just simply accumulating other people's thoughts, and theories, and
things. They are really good at espousing it but there's no benefit; there's
nothing that's really penetrated with that yet.

There was a story of this one monk that was studying with this one Master
and he was trying his hardest and hardest to practice and to get it right. And
the Master was emphasizing through principle and study. And so finally the
Master suggested he go with somebody else. He went with some other Master and
gained realization through the practice. When he came back, he entered this Master’s
room and the Master was reading the sutras. He was holding them up and reading
the sutras and the student said to him, “It is very sad that you're looking at
the sutras, but you cannot penetrate beyond the Sutra because the answer lies
outside your window.” He didn’t mean to say it in an insulting way but just let
him know that there's more than just that.

But on the other hand, one needs the study to create the Right View. When one has a Right View,
that really helps you in terms of your practice. You can spend years just
sitting in a meditative method but without the Right View, you may even think that you’ve gained entry or you may
think that you’ve gotten a very deep realization. But not so; those have to be
tested by well-knowing advisers and teachers. You cannot self-determine that otherwise
you really make a mess of yourself and the people you come into contact with.

This again today is your lesson on the Huatou. We’re going to keep
working on the Huatou and I want to keep reemphasizing the principles of the Huatou
so that you can have a better understanding of it. Even if you find out that this
is not what you want to do, at least if you are a Chan practitioner, you should
know what a Huatou is. Otherwise when people ask you “What do you practice?”

“Oh, I practice watching the breath.”

“I thought Chan was more than that? Do you practice the Huatou?”

“I don’t know; nobody ever taught me.”

Well, I am teaching you now. Any questions?

Student: How does one put in the mental energy into the question so that
it occupies all that state in your mind? I’m finding myself asking this
question over and over again, genuinely expecting an answer but in the extra
processing power in the brain, it’s going up and doing all sorts of stupid
things.

Gilbert: It’s because you don’t have enough determination to do that and
again, you have to have faith that it will work. Trust me! It will work; it
will work but you have to believe that. You have to believe that and set that into
motion and understand that it is a process that one goes through. It's not like
all of a sudden you do it, and you become enlightened instantly. You’ve got to
pay the dues; you really have to pay the dues. In anything that you do,
anything that you accomplished, whether it's in martial arts or whatever, you
have to pay the dues.

I remember trying to teach people some martial arts before and they had
the idea of me teaching them is that they hit me. And when I hit them, they
quit because for some reason they didn't fathom the idea that martial arts is
that: “I hit you; you hit me.” So they didn't understand it. Here you have to understand
there are dues to be paid; not in his suffering way but just simply a respect
for the method and the respect for the practice. What happens is little by
little as you begin to practice, you don't even realize the incremental changes
that are happening. One day you might find yourself here setting up equipment, never
even thinking about that maybe a year ago, you might not have done that. You don’t
see those little tiny changes like that but they are there, and you're paying
your dues.

And so as you begin to do that, you begin to pay dues more and more and
it will pay off one of these days. It's not like those Las Vegas slots in the
fancy hotels that never pay off. This will pay off eventually but “you” won't
know. The only thing you’ll know is that the more effort you put into it, it
will happen. So what's happening is you do not have enough of the Virya, the determination to do it, and
so the mind wanders off. It's going to wonder off because I've taught you that the
mind has a tendency to do it through what you put into it. It's going to pick
up and say, “Oh, I want to think about work; I want to think about this; I want
think about your girlfriend, or you want to think about whatever it is.” All
those things are naturally in there and they are going to come up.

What you do is you just keep using the Huatou, staying with the Huatou,
staying with it. The most simplest thing in the beginning that you need to know
about the Huatou, is to stay with it and stay with it. If you are with the Huatou,
then it is not possible for all of the other things to be going on your mind. You
could only juggle one thing at a time. The mind is like a switch; it'll switch
from the Huatou and all of a sudden, you’re at work. So what you have to do is
have the determination to keep bringing it back over here - matching up what's
in the mind with the Huatou; “Is it the Huatou, or is it work?” ”It’s work;” then
no match, so re-create the Huatou in your mind. Re-create it again, and again,
and again, and eventually, you'll become good at giving the mind's attention and
the mind energy to the Huatou and not to your spurious thoughts that come up. You
understand those thoughts will come up and you understand it gets frustrating
to do that.

It is like somebody who's trying to build a ship in a bottle. They're
trying to put the first sticks in there to make the keel and it keeps flopping
over, flopping over, flopping over. And finally they go “I've had it?” They barely
started and they’re already looking at it as a losing proposition; “It won’t
work.” Somebody has been able to build a ship in a bottle.

It is very interesting, the Chinese have this bottle I don’t know if you’ve
seen this glass bottle that they paint from the inside. Now I imagine the first
ones that the artist did weren't too good but afterwards, they make a beautiful
and elaborate painting on the inside of the bottle. How did they do that? By practice.
It is very simple; one practices and one maintains that practice. Stay with the
method and it will work.

Student: I just want to share that with the Huatou, it is like that
snowball gaining momentum. Soon you’ll get past that stage and it’s just going
to build momentum. It feels like a vacuum cleaner that gets stronger and
stronger that it will suck up everything and turns things inside-out. Huatou is
going to build momentum; it’s going to build energy, and you’ll just have to
stick with that first phase and soon you will see how it’s building that
momentum.

Gilbert: Yes, you’re a criminal defense attorney and so in your
practice, if the prosecutor says, “I want your guy to cop a plea to the highest
that he could possibly get.” You don’t go, “Oh, okay I’ll do that!” “No,” you
go, “No, that’s not right! I want to stick with it. I want to represent this
guy and get the best deal I can get.” Here when using the Huatou, you try to
get your best deal that you can get. You stick with it and it will change on you.
It will evolve but in the beginning, it's just the reciting, then the asking
the question, and then afterwards, the question will become an investigation.

But even in the theories in the beginning, it's like you ask the question,
you recite the question and then you’re illuminating the question; you’re
investigating it. That's all in there, and little by little the emphasis is
going to change to the investigation part or the contemplation. But the
investigation is not in cogitation - not in thinking about it, but in the
contemplation of what is happening in the mind. That’s when it’ll begin to pay
off. Any other question?

Student: One thing that helps me in the past to stay with the Huatou was
something you said last week; about putting the attention on the calling of the
question and the rising of the question. It’s not just about asking the
question; it’s actually paying attention to the question arising in mind. And
that contributes to the question so “Who is doing that; who is reciting the
Buddha’s name?”

Gilbert: Yes, what you did was you kind of jumped. Because you’re using
your heart with it, you kind of jumped to the real important emphasis there. By
seeing where the question arises from and the mind is looking at that. It's no
longer taking the question to be mind; very interesting – what is looking at
what?

Student: When I first tried using the Huatou, I was having a hard time
trying to develop this idea of “before the question,” because you repeat the
question over and over. And if you do that, it’s hard for me to understand that
“before that.” I actually keep seeing something over and over again. How do you
emphasize “before the word?”

Gilbert: (…silence…) what is that? (…silence…) … just this moment; it’s
just this moment. Just keep the mind there - before the question, before the answer
- just this moment. Just keep coming back there; see, it’s really quiet; really
really quiet. If I answer your question with words, right off the bat you lose
that; don’t lose that. Just right now… what is appearing? Whether there's a
word, or no word, a sound, no sound, an image, no image, it’s just this. This
is how mind is.

5/26/14

Good evening to you all. I welcome back one of my students from yesteryear.
I don’t know if he ever stopped being my student. Bill Foreman, he’s out in San
Diego now so I welcome him here to listen to the lectures live and to all of
you, welcome. This is May 19, 2014 our regular Monday night class; I welcome
all of you who are listening by way of the Internet.

Tonight we’re going to work on a of certain phrase or verse from the Heart Sutra
that has been kind of interpreted in a certain way but it has an importance in
terms of how we approach our practice, how we approach our life, and how we approach
meditation. When we practice before we sit to meditate, we really need to understand
what we're doing, what's happening, why are things arising, why can't we stop
things from arising in the moment, so that with this kind of the background we
can sit fearlessly; so that we are not influenced in any way by anything that
arises in mind. The only thing that influences us is maintaining the method,
but it's difficult for us to do this if somebody just teaches you to “sit there
and cross your legs, watch your breath and we’ll let you in a few years from
now what this all means.”

Rather it's easier to tell you how to do it in the right way. And based
on the proper foundations, then one will work and achieve much greater wisdom
than if they did it just simply by sitting down and waiting and waiting and
waiting for it to happen. It can happen that way but for some people, they will
lose their interest way before they get anywhere. For others they could've
gotten it much faster. So this is a reason why we learn in this way.

When I was learning Chi-gong with one Master [I was the principal student],
but actually before I was his principal student, he asked one of us about what
we want to do: did we want to learn some methods of practice or did we want to
learn theory. People went “Practice! Practice! We want practice! Let’s do this
and that!” And I was only one who said, “No, I really want to learn theory.” Why,
because without the theories, the practice is meaningless; we don't really know
what we're doing.

When we’re sitting, we need to have those theories there and the
practice will be very, very useful. But without it, we don't really know what we’re
practicing. It's the same with the practice of Chan and I think that's probably
what helped me in the practice of Chan [with my background in Chi-gong training],
learning the fundamentals and the theories behind it and doing the same thing
challenging myself with Chan. With that kind of a background, the practice
became a lot easier. One of things that probably a little bit easier for me was
that I already developed great concentration which is needed in the practice of
meditation. But in the practice, we have to see “where did this all came from?”

So today we will work on this just a little bit. I imagine some of you
were going to be confused and sometimes people get frustrated with that but
don't be frustrated; just say that “there must be a meaning.” If all of a
sudden I’m speaking to some of you and it seems like that you don’t understand
what we’re saying or it appears to be contradictory, but we’re perfectly
carrying on a conversation. The conversation is on Chan and in that one moment,
the student and the teacher is in a state of Chan and perfectly understanding
each other. But don't get frustrated or angry and jealous about that. It is
just simply something that we do and we pay attention and we learn from all of
that.

Today we're going to talk on a certain part of the Heart Sutra. It’s kind
of traditionally how this particular stanza reads and it says:

This last term “neither increasing nor decreasing” is a very, very
important point because it's actually not translated in the proper way. This
last part should say “it's neither complete nor incomplete;” which makes it
very interesting because how can you say that? Just think about what it means -
neither complete nor incomplete; it appears to be a really irreconcilable
contradiction. What does that mean? But to somebody who is in a state of Chan,
it makes perfect sense. But it's difficult for us because we approach it from
the viewpoint of a person that is looking at it from the idea of the phenomenal
world of the conceptual world. In the conceptual world, we look at it as
something either complete or not complete. How can it be neither one of those?
That just zeros everything out. Precisely what happens is that is a state of
emptiness.

And as we look at it, we see things in this way. Actually this
particular stanza was the response to the marks of what we call Three Dharma
Seals or Three Great Insights. In these insights, one of them is the impermanence of things; the other one
is suffering, and the other is lack of self. So no birth and no death,
there's no pure or impure, and there's this idea of impermanence. As one looks
at these points and sees the points that they're actually this progression from
no-self, to no-suffering, to impermanence.

This idea of impermanence is the embodiment of what is in the Mahayana
tradition, Shunyata. Mahayana varies from Theravada [Mahayana
being the Greater Vehicle] and it was the little brother to the Theravada [Theravada
meaning the study of the elders]. In the Mahayana tradition, there was a bit of
a divergence there in terms of how one approaches the practice. Whereas in the
Theravada and using the Abhidharma School [which was propounded by Sariputra now
being schooled by Kuanyin Bodhisattva, Avalokitesvara] is being shown the
Mahayana School which is one that embodies emptiness.

This emptiness is there and the difference is where the Abhidharma [from
the Theravada] see everything as real. The Mahayana says it cannot be real; if
something is real it would be like everlasting or to coin the phrase, [I was
referring before we started] like Willy Wonka's everlasting Gob-stopper Candy
that never finishes. That cannot be! That was the magic in that particular
movie; it continues on and on and on. The only thing that continues on and on
is the idea of impermanence, which is Shunyata – emptiness.

This emptiness is not the emptiness of an empty glass but the emptiness
that is within all things. It's not separate; it's not like there's emptiness
between you and me. But in between you and me, there's emptiness and it doesn't
stop at my hand; it continues on and permeates everything. Everything that
appears, whether it appears in the concept that there is space between us, or
in the physical body, or the thoughts that run through our heads, they are all
empty; they are all impermanent.

What all of that does, this one particular line or verse of the Heart
Sutra is extremely powerful because what it’s pointing to is one, the Four
Noble Truths, and also the fundamental aspect of Mahayana, Paticca-samuppada - causes and conditions never fail;
that for every condition there is a cause. And it is perfect in this way. Everything
is perfect in this way; it's constantly working in this way; that something
happens and that brings about another condition. If you look at your life, you
look at everything around you; you'll see that pattern - that it's not by
accident that things happen.

So when you see this kind of a pattern in the life, you understand that.
It is very easy; you want take this [and I’ve been using some really fancy
highfalutin words today] but in any case, it doesn't matter. What matters is
that you know as simple as what the Chinese say, “If you plant a melon seed,
you get a melon.” Everything is just in this way and you see things and it no
longer is a world of mystery. It is precisely the way it is and when you see
the world in this way, it makes it easier to deal with the things that are
happening.

It doesn't mean that you have an inoculation from adversity, or from troubles.
On a regular basis, I get e-mails from people that have problems in their lives
and when they have problems, I help them. I talk to them; each one in a different
way. Some I can respond with one word, where others, I take a long time to
respond because that's what they need and I work through it. In this way this
is what I do.

I had heard from a friend earlier this year. He said “I have this
problem, my Mom is passing and I have this and these personal things going on” but
they went right over that person because that person was only thinking about
their problem which I helped. Then finally three or five months later, they contacted
me and I said, “How are you doing? How is your mom?” And at that point he said
that she passed. And I said “I think of you and I sent you know good wishes every
day” because that’s what a friend does.

That’s just our practice; we take care of each other. I think that
person got a little bit shamed by what I said, but it was a lesson in a very soft
way. This is what we do; we listen. We have a difficulty being able to listen
and to see things clearly. But when we listen from this wisdom that comes from
the great treatises and Sutras like the Heart Sutra, it helps us. It helps us
deal with the world and maybe we can’t instantly change people around us but we
do influence them a lot and that’s what matters. Little by little, this world
changes because of us. We understand that the world changes regardless of
whether we practice or not, but sometimes we change the world in a bad way.

Now be honest; has there been a time in your life that you changed this
world for a bad purpose? Please raise your hands! I see a lot of crocodile arms.
We look at that and we see how the world changes. You see, even though I
started off very deep and profound with the teaching but the teachings are very
simple. Little by little as you come, you learn the vernacular of Buddhadharma.
But from the very first day, your heart should be touched by the Buddhadharma.
You should be touched to say “What am I putting here? What am I doing?” That's
exactly what's happening here. When we look at that and we see this, what it
does is it raises; rather than say that “Oh, nothing exists; that everything is
impermanent; it doesn't matter.”

Quite to the contrary, the Mahayana doctrine went a reverse way with that.
They said because there's no difference between us; your suffering is a
suffering of all sentient beings, is the suffering of mind. And even if it
could be a bad dream, it still matters to wake that person up from that bad
dream; to take them out of that. It still matters. That is Mahayana; being that,
which enables us to spread this to help other people rather than just simply
having this one little rescue vehicle like they have in a sci-fi movie, this
little escape pod blows out before the main ship is going to crash or explode
to save one person.

In the Mahayana way, it saves many. And it's recyclable; it comes back.
It keeps coming back to save others even though we look at it and we understand
that we’re saving sentient beings [sentient beings are beings that are able to
cogitate]. We save these sentient beings with the perfect understanding or
perfect realization or awareness that there
are no sentient beings to save. But that's what makes it work; that's what
makes it not complete or incomplete; it’s beyond that, yet it touches all those
parts. Any questions about that? Again I don't expect you to really be able to
grasp the more profound aspects of what I'm talking about now. But it is an extension
of at an invitation to look deeper into it so that you can see what is there
and we see it in the proper way.

So we look at the book, the Heart Sutra from Red Pine and I'll be using
a lot of his stuff so I want to give him credit right now for what I'm working
with now even though I've been using different sources. But his verse here is:

Here Shariputra, all dharmas are defined by
emptiness. Not birth or destruction, purity or defilements, completeness or
deficiency.

It’s a little bit clearer here because it's not “does not increase or
decrease.” That requires you to conceptualize about that “not increasing or
decreasing;” that is more static. But one of the things about Mahayana Buddhism
is it's not static. It's not something that is not moving. It is alive. It is alive in the present moment. It’s complete and incomplete, and not
complete and not incomplete; it is just in that moment it's dynamic. Probably
one of the biggest changes in terms of it is seeing this emptiness as being dynamic. To test you if you remember, what makes
emptiness dynamic? I was teaching this a couple of weeks ago. Emptiness you
could say is the mind-ground but there's a component of the mind that makes it
dynamic that comes from wisdom.

Student: Right View?

Gilbert: Right View is the wisdom but what comes from the right view is compassion;
this very great compassion. That’s
the dynamic aspect of the mind; this incredible, incredible compassion that
hears the suffering everywhere. It's not the suffering and I always equate it
to this ironized pant cowboy with the Indian and he would see trash along the
road and he’s got these big giant crocodile tears coming down. It’s not this
kind. It's not that kind of sadness like that; it is even beyond that. I
shouldn't diminish that because that’s actually a good example. But if somebody
sees things and very conditional like [I use the baby dead raccoon versus the
baby dead rat] where people have compassion for the baby dead raccoon but not
for the rat.

In this way the compassion of a Mahayana Buddhist is unlimited. It goes
to everywhere and it works in this way. It does not see one good one and one bad
one. It has this great, great compassion. When one views the world this way, and
when I say “one views the world,” it’s your interaction in the world. If you view
the world in this way, you will not have an enemy. People might be your enemy
but you will not have an enemy. You will not see him that way and you will
understand a little bit more why that person says things about you, or whatever.
It could be out of fear, or jealousy, or just lack of the good karmic root with
that person. You just leave them alone. You can try to make them your friend;
sometimes you try to make some your friend and you can’t.

Have you ever been in that situation where no matter how much you try to
make them your friend, they’re still snotty with you? You just leave them alone
because in this lifetime, you don't have an affinity or positive affinity with them,
so what you don't want to do is carry into the next lifetime a negative
affinity where you show up and you raise your nose to them and turn around. You
stop it. That is simply Paticca-samuppada – causes and conditions never fail;
whatever you put in there, you know it will produce future fruit and that future
fruit is going to want to adjust for what happened in the past.

I was reading a book and every once in a while, I'll read some escapist
book like semi-like action and science. It was very funny because [I was talking
about this the other day] the book said, “Try to imagine a sword piercing
through the sky and the image of the sword piercing through the sky.” What is
that, being able to pierce through the sky? Not sticking the sword up into the sky,
but piercing the sky. What's that? It’s like literally tearing the fabric of
our existence. This book actually… the next week I was reading it and it had to
do with that exact subject, of this anti-matter and breaking open into anti-matter
or dark energy.

There was a quote in the book from a quantum physicist and they were
talking about howthe past is reflected in the present, but
the future is that which is adjusting to the past and trying to equalize itso that all the things we want to, they come
and are one as you are looking at it. And I’m going, “That’s Paticca-samuppada!” Mahayana Buddhism has been acquainted
to quantum physics because of these kinds of notion that if you hit me, then I
hit you and then you're going to hit me in the future. If I love you, if I’m
your friend, you will be my friend; it’s just that way. It just wants to bring
everything into this equality. Not necessarily the opposite but to an equal state.
So whether it's minus-minus or plus-plus, it doesn't matter! Those things are
there and one understands that.

If you understand how mind works, it makes this life very easy, and it
makes meditation extremely easy because then you understand what's happening in
mind when you sit there to meditate. When your mind is roaming, it's naturally roaming
because you put those thoughts there. And when it's stable and on the method, your
body begins to calm down more, your mind calms down, you have a sense of
calmness, the Samathagrows in you, this feeling of well-being; your concentration is
there, and wisdom begins to arise because you set the table for it with your
understanding of how mind works. You put the initiative into the practice and
then through this practice, now wisdom naturally arises.

And it's not “you” there figuring out complicated quantum physics
calculations or thinking about what I said in the class. You just simply
understand how this mind works, you know how mind works, and so it makes it a
lot easier. Anybody here a Math major? No? The idea is, have you ever been in
the math class where you don't know what's going on; the teacher is there
scribbling of the board and you have no idea what he is doing? Raise your hands!
Not everybody but you know there's some people that love it and to them it's so
easy to do. But to let's say 99.9% of us that are not math-inclined or math-challenged
people, we don't know that. I mean you can go to a certain level - two plus two
is easy, right? (laughs…) But when you start adding X, Y, and Z's and some
Greek symbols on there, it becomes extremely complicated and then you lose
track of all that. And you just go “I have no idea what they're doing!”

Once learning the equations though, it opens up a whole different world.
Once you learn the equations, it's easy; you can see it. What we're doing when
we come to this class is learning how to work the equations. So then when we sit
to meditate, that's when we’re actually putting it into practice and putting it
into the practice naturally with all of these equations just reflecting in mind.
You don't have to think about them; they’re just there and they give you the
faith that when you sit it's going to work. They give you the faith that if you
smile at people, they will smile back at you. You understand in a very, very
simple way how these all work. Any questions?

I’m going to throw you into the deep end here but I have limited time in
terms of explaining these to you. This is into Red Pine’s commentary on the Heart
Sutra and in particular the term “no births nor destruction, purity or
defilements, completeness or deficiency.” He says:

According
to the above formula, the fundamental mark (mula-lakshana)
is impermanence, which itself includes the marks of birth and destruction. But
if, Avalokitesvara tells us, all dharmas are empty of self existence, impermanence
no longer applies…

It is a very interesting thing so now we’re really in uncharted
territory. I want tell you that I don't expect you to understand what was said
here. For a week I probably read these two pages fifteen times. Sometimes that’s
what it takes to do it - read it over and over again; not missing it at all. So
all of a sudden you go, “What the heck is he talking about? I didn't even
understand one word of that!” He's saying that “if Avalokitesvara tells us all dharmas
(phenomena) are empty of self existence” means it has no separate existence
like this book was wood at some point and was brought into some factory and
created into paper. It may get thrown into an incinerator and burn and turn
into ashes and carbon. It is constantly changing, nursing the ground and creating
more trees. Each phenomena is separate of this separate existence. He says:

…impermanence
no longer applies as they neither come into being, nor ceaseto be.The Greek
philosopher Heroclites, a contemporary of the Buddha, declared “Hanta pei.” Everything flows. But if
there is no beginning and no end, then there is no impermanence. Impermanence
is based on the concept that at least two states of temporal existence: the birth
and death of an animate being and the origination and destruction of an animate
object. In the light of Prajnaparamita, all such states are seen to be empty of
self-existence.

So what he's saying here that he's just going through it saying
everything that you see, everything that you think, everything that you feel,
all things that are there: from form, sensation, perception, volition, to
consciousness, they're all empty. They have no permanence to them but that
impermanence is also is not-impermanent. The Mahayana practice really takes away
everything you want to hold onto.

That is, they
do not exist or occur independently of other states and are only visible on the
basis of arbitrary distinctions. Existence of anything in our material or
mental universe cannot be determined without positing the existence of
something else. And if we look closely enough, we would see that these, too,
are neither born nor destroyed.

According to
the Sarvastivadins [those were the ones that were proponents of the Abdidharma],
in the course of a single day we experience 6,400,099,998 such births and
deaths. But each birth and each death is illusory for birth and death are
devoid of anything real. Thus Avalokitesvara tells Shariputra that dharmas are
neither born nor destroyed.

When Hung-jen,
the Fifth Patriarch of China’s Zen sect, decided it was time to choose an heir,
he asked the monks at his temple to express their understanding in a poem.

A lot of you had heard the story before of Shen-hsiu and Hui-neng (The Sutra of Hui-neng). Shen-hsiu was like his star pupil and
Hui-neng came in and was actually just pounding rice in the kitchen for quite a
long time. Hung-jen recognized something special about him but he didn't want
to call attention to it so he put him out in the kitchen. When Hung-jen says
that he wanted choose a successor to him, he had all the monks write a poem.
But the monks didn’t want to write the poem because they knew Shen-hsiu would
beat them to it because he was like the star pupil.

So Shen-hsiu was in his room going “I have to write something and it’s
got to be good, and it has to reflect what I know, and if I don't write something
good then it’s going to show; so I’ve got to think of what I write.” He painted
the verse on a wall but he didn’t let anybody know that he did it so that way if
it was crappy, he could disavow that it was his. After the monks said it was
great, he stepped forward and accepted all the accolades. Shen-hsiu’s poem read:

Our
body is the Bodhi-tree,
And our mind a mirror bright.
Carefully we wipe them hour by hour,
And let no dust alight.

What he was saying was you have to clean your thoughts, checking, cleaning,
checking, cleaning… When Hung-jen saw that, he had all the monks commit it to memory.
So one of the monks was reciting it when he was walking to the kitchen and Hui-neng
says, “That’s interesting but it doesn't quite reflect completely what it
should.” So he said “Take me to it,” so he took him to the wall.

When Hui-neng saw it, he had the monk read it to him word for word
[because Hui-neng is illiterate]. He says, “Not quite!” He says “can you get
some ink and a brush?” The monk says “You can't cross it out!” Hui-neng says
“I’m not going to cross it out; I just want you to add something next to it.”
And Hui-neng dictated the monk to write:

There is no
Bodhi-tree,
Nor stand of a mirror bright.
Since all is void,
Where can the dust alight?

What Hui-neng was saying was originally there's nothing. He was going to
the direct emptiness of everything and this idea of sudden illumination and the
idea of using this very profound wisdom to look at things. Rather than look at
things in terms of as being dharmas and being real, he was looking at saying “it's
all empty.”

Now Shen-hsiu wasn't necessarily bad or completely wrong in what he was
doing. His approach was to practice, practice, practice, practice which is what
he was doing, and ultimately it will lead to Silent Illumination. But the
orientation that is critical is that we have this orientation of this emptiness.
If we do not have this idea of emptiness when we sit to meditate, we’re just
sitting there and we’re becoming very good at blocking out thoughts or making
our mind very dark which isn’t that because there's no illumination; there's no
wisdom.

When you’re having good sitting or having some kind of entry [even
through the principle] by reading, a teacher can sense that; they can sense
that there’s a change. I give you a hint though, that the well-knowing advisers
rarely let the students know that. We’re just that way; my teacher, Master
Sheng-yen, was the same way with me, and they just don’t let you know those
things. They may confer things on you later on [as I became a Dharma heir]. And
also prior to that, I’ve received an inca
from Master Sheng-yen as well, which is a symbol of looking into ones True Nature
and giving one the right to expound on the Dharma. But they don't come out and
say things like that. I would never say that nor would I ever say that I’ve
looked into my True Nature. It is not way; it doesn’t work that way. All we do is
extend an invitation for people to look into. And that is what I’m doing
tonight is having you look into this and trying to play with this concept of
emptiness.

If you get it right, you’ll be playing with this for the next 10 years
with no end in sight. You’ll just be playing with it and playing with it. There’s
not a day that goes by that I don’t play with “What is mind? What is mind? What
is emptiness?” In this way it's like a sound check or sounding that one does;
like somebody on a ship putting down string and a weight in the water to see
how deep it goes. You’re checking and if it hits something that you keep going
up the river until finally there’s nothing that you hit. The same thing with
the sound check, it just bounces back in the right way; you’re constantly
checking yourself everyday with this idea of “what is mind?” Not consciousness;
mind. Consciousness, remember it appears in mind.

All of this is pointing towards this and what Hui-neng did and what he
said was essentially pointing directly at the mind and the illumination of the
mind saying “Be clear about this! There's no dust to wipe off; that originally,
there was nothing there; not the mirror, or the mirror standing bright. So true
to the Chan tradition, Hui-neng presents this in a way in which we are clear
about not just simply like wiping at the dust but one has to look more
profoundly into this. That profound investigation is what pays off dividends
later on.

The interesting kind of side note was that actually the Fifth Patriarch was
Hung-jen. The Sixth Patriarch was originally Shen-hsiu, not Hui-neng. Hui-neng,
because of his disciple, Shen-hui, politicked the Emperor [and was good at
convincing the Emperor] to reverse the decision as to indicating that Shen-hsiu
was the Sixth Patriarch and putting Hui-neng instead. It’s an interesting play
in terms of how things are and the idea of how one looks at the practice. There's
isn’t unnecessarily wrong with you using Shen-hsiu to try to eliminate thought
but it can present an obstruction when you're sitting to meditate and you’re trying
to push thought out and you’re trying to keep your mind clean.

It's much easier to see [rather than from a judgmental point] where it’s
neither pure nor impure looking at it as it is. That’s what the Heart Sutra is
saying: it’s neither pure nor impure. Just look at Paticca-samuppada; see why
things are arising in mind, see why things are arising in your environment. You're
going to see that those things are there, perfectly in their place, and we
don't have to judge them as “This is good; this is bad; I don't want to see
that!” We just simply are clear about that.

Sometimes when I went into a retreat, I would see people from the
Japanese practice, when they get off their cushion they don’t want to see
anybody. They would just stand with their face to the wall drinking their tea.
They really made a point of not looking at anybody until they went and sat down
again. When I got off my cushion, I just walked. I got my tea and if I had to use
the restroom, I use the restroom and maintain my method and went back, and
noticed everything. But it had nothing to do with me.

So we should not be those that strive to put a fig-leaf on statutes and
think that this is sacred. We strive to work diligently to remove the
obstructions in our mind. The obstruction is the notion of self; the notion
that there is something that has to be placated, or given, or rejected; that we
are looking at this from the idea of suffering. When we look at suffering, there's
a very strong self. When there's very little self, there's very little suffering.
All of these things that were being said here are the Three Marks of Existence
- what they call Dharma Seals in terms of what is being taught. We’re clear
about all these points that help us in terms of our practice.

I’m not going to get any further than I got to the preface so we will
have to continue next week. Any questions about what I said?

Student: (inaudible)

Gilbert: The question in part was displaying that she was paying
attention to my lecture which is good in terms of saying that all of this is the
Right View. And this idea of the right view is very important in terms of our
practice and it does generate this deep wisdom that enables us to work with it.
The question was, is there a difference between one person meditating with this
type of concentration [Samatha, Samadhi and Samatha is this calmness that one
has with it], is there a difference between one person and five people in the
room doing that? Absolutely, because everything is created by the mind; not
your mind, mind. So when one does that, it's like the difference between
hearing one tuning fork and six tuning forks. When you have six tuning forks, it
is very powerful.

That's why when one goes to a retreat, if the retreat and the conditions
are proper, other people’s calmness will assist in everyone else's practice.
This is why to me, I felt very much a responsibility when I go to the retreat
to sit for longer periods of time, and sometimes through the breaks so that
people will become encouraged and they would be able to tune into that kind of
calmness there. So I really wasn't sitting for myself. I was just simply trying
to resonate as Master Sheng-yen talked about often - that one should resonate
in the proper wave or tone so that it benefits others. So the more that people
do that, the more it works. You can see the difference.

On the contrary when someone coughs at a retreat, the first person goes,
“cough!” and the next person go, “cough! cough!” And after a while, it sounds
like a TB ward because everybody now is off of that and now are resonating with
the idea of coughing and maybe suppressing their cough and then they all
started coughing.

There was one retreat I went to; it was the last week of a 49-day retreat
so the people were very accustomed with each other. I was not; I just came in to
the retreat. And in the afternoon, everybody was farting. (laughs…) I go, “what
the heck!” People were just farting; as soon as one person go “Faarrt!!!”
another one would “Faarrrt!” it sounds like that Blazing Saddles movie where they’re
all sitting around a campfire eating beans. (more laughs…) And I was going “what
the heck!” And some of them were the nuns (more laughs…) and I’m going “What the
heck is this?” But it was because that's what was resonating; that is what was
going through the mind when people became very comfortable.

It probably had to do with it being warm and having fruit and vegetables
at the mealtime you know, and creating this big giant ball of gas instead of
this giant ball of doubt in each of them, but there's a resonance that happens.
It’s why it’s very important to maintain a proper atmosphere in a retreat so
that the people can kind feed off the positive energy and the weaker ones, into
the strength of the others. And it will work that way. But conversely if you
lose control of the Chan Hall, then all of a sudden it becomes something
totally different, a very explosive situation. So you have to watch that.

The answer your question is “yes” but that's the beauty of it. You see,
the beauty of the practice is not just in meditation but in everything we do -
a smile goes a long way. If I touch you with a smile, you take that smile wherever
you go, and you spread it. It’s incredible, right!! If I always appear like Eor,
like you know, “Nobody.. loves me… I’m so tired.” Then people wouldn’t want to
come; “he drags me down; he’s so boring; he’s such a downer.” But if I
interject a bit of humor and spirit into the practice, it works. I learned that
from Master Sheng-yen who was such an incredibly funny person, but yet very
profound in his teaching because he puts people at ease and makes it easier. Any
other questions? We’ll take a quick break and will start using the Huatou
method again.